Harboring the Harborless: A Tradition Both Ennobling and Bedeviling (10300)

Connecting the Dots: A Register Series on the Corporal Works of Mercy

One of the most exasperating bits of exegetical trendiness to afflict first-world Catholics for the past 30 years or so has been the endless recirculation, like a bad penny, of the “True Meaning of the Miracles of the Loaves and Fishes” homily. It goes like this:

Jesus found himself in the wilderness with a crowd of 5,000 people who were two millennia less smart than we suburban Americans. When people started getting hungry, Jesus took five loaves and two fishes and gave them to a couple of people around him. Suddenly, inspired by a wave of warm fuzziness emanating from this gesture, everybody remembered the picnic baskets they had tucked away in the folds of their robes and started sharing their lunches. People were so moved by this utterly unprecedented outburst of mutual generosity that they called it the “miracle” of the loaves and fishes. So we should also likewise share our lunches. The end.

It’s a story that only suburban Americans could possibly believe. As a Palestinian friend of mine once said, “My father would sooner see our family starve to death than have a guest go without food.” That’s a sentiment found almost universally in the hospitality of the Near East, and it has roots that go back to remotest antiquity.

The notion that Jesus “inspired” ancient Semites to share their food in the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes is like the notion that he “inspired” them to walk on two legs or breathe air for the first time in their history. It’s balderdash. Hospitality was one of the sacred duties universally recognized by everybody in the crowd that day.

Indeed, the Old Testament is full of testimony to the ancient Jewish conviction that care for guests was crucial. Abraham, for instance, is marked by his sense of hospitality most notably when the Three Visitors arrive to promise the birth of Isaac and to warn of the destruction of Sodom (Genesis 18). However, the wicked town was not, as modern theologians are wont to say, ultimately destroyed for its inhospitality (but that’s another story for another time).

Scripture constantly emphasizes Israel’s duty of hospitality to the alien, the orphan and the widow (Deuteronomy 10:18; Jeremiah 7:6). The Book of Ruth centers on the duty to take in the stranger — and it becomes a book of the Bible because out of this drama issues Israel’s greatest king, David, a descendant of Ruth.

And David’s story, of course, ultimately issues in the birth of the Son of David, Jesus. Yet the paradox of Jesus’ birth is that “his own received him not” (John 1:11). He is shunted off to a stable to be born. He lives the life of an itinerant preacher with nowhere to lay his head. His few moments with a roof over his head are unusual, and those who provided him with hospitality (such as Mary of Bethany) and are remembered for it are remarkable and rare (John 11:1-2). He dies despised and rejected of men, and even his burial place has to be borrowed since he has none of his own. This is the backdrop for the Christian understanding of the tradition of hospitality — a tradition that both ennobles and bedevils us. It’s the source of that great Christian invention, the “hospital” (note the etymology of the word), and of the current chaos in our country concerning illegal immigration.

It’s why we give to homeless shelters and why we feel so baffled and conflicted by the homeless when we meet them. Do we tell them, “If anyone will not work, let him not eat” like St. Paul (2 Thessalonians 3:10)? Or do we take them in like Mother Teresa?

The Church, as is her custom, does not offer us a program for harboring the harborless, any more than it writes us a recipe book to buttress her command to feed the hungry. It’s pretty much up to us how we are to live out the ideal. So, for instance, some people start — and many people support — homeless shelters, shelters for runaways and shelters for battered women and drug addicts, etc. Others (with more courage than most of us, including me) take homeless people into their homes. This is radical charity. It is also quite dangerous, as a woman I know discovered when her grateful guests fled the premises with her wallet and embarked on a campaign of identity theft.

This brings us to a point many well-meaning people discover in painful ways: Just because somebody is a victim doesn’t mean they can’t be bad too. Hitler, after all, was homeless once. It’s easy, in the flush of excitement over conversion, to leap into a Franciscan zeal for the homeless, only to discover that the homeless guy you want to help is homeless not because he’s one of the wretched of the earth whom fate has dealt a bad hand, but because he’s a violent, unstable person who bites the hand that feeds him.

Sometimes, the bum suffers, not from bum luck, but from sitting on his sinful bum. Sometimes, it really is better for professionals to handle things than to assume that your sanctity will melt the heart of the guy who, if you but knew it, is wanted in three states.

Yet, all that said, we are still commanded to harbor the harborless. And there are ways to do it both with personal involvement and via financial support — without compromising our own safety and well-being.

For instance, in the 1980s, a small nondenominational church in Seattle started sponsoring refugees. I remember it well because it was my church. Our pastor arranged with a relief agency to help a Vietnamese family who had walked through Pol Pot’s Killing Fields in Cambodia and seen corpses stacked like cord wood. We also sponsored families from communist Romania and Poland.

That’s not just an evangelical thing. Catholics can do it too, especially Catholic parishes that pool their considerable resources.

Of course, in keeping with G.K. Chesterton’s famous remark that Catholics agree about everything and only disagree about everything else, it’s worth noting that the question of just how to harbor the harborless has no one-size-fits-all approach.

The American episcopacy (and many priests and lay Catholics) are all over the map concerning how the Church should respond to illegal immigrants. Some of the confusion is due to the fact that the question of how the Church should respond is not the same as the question of how Caesar should respond.

A priest in Los Angeles is not bound by the question of whether the human being at his door is legal. He is bound by the fact that the human being at his door is Jesus Christ.

At the same time, foolish things have been said to the effect that America is like Nazi Germany for so much as having an immigration policy. This is silly. Every state needs a way of screening out dangers to the common good. So trying to create a system of legal immigration that works is just common sense. Laws should be respected.

No nation on earth has been as welcoming of the stranger as the United States has — a testimony to the penetration of this particular corporal work of mercy into the American psyche. How this particular struggle to live out this corporal work of mercy will play out, I do not know.

But if we follow our historical pattern, we can hope that the stranger from the south will find a welcome as did the stranger from Ireland, elsewhere in Europe and Asia.

Meantime, most of us are not tasked to deal with 12 million illegal aliens. Instead, we can start in much simpler ways by welcoming the stranger, be he literally homeless or merely “checking out the parish.”

In my experience, that’s where we lay Catholics can be of huge assistance to the Body of Christ. Spiritual homelessness in one’s own parish is epidemic in Catholic America. The stories of aching loneliness we hear from average Catholics sitting as strangers in pews all over the U.S. are painfully familiar and painfully common: “Nobody knows my name. We have no friends here. I come to get my sacrament card punched each Sunday, but I have no living connection to this parish.”

It’s the No. 1 reason ex-Catholics are ex-Catholics. They don’t leave the Church because they read “Call no man your father” (Matthew 23:9) and realize to their horror that priests are called “Father.” That’s the theological excuse that gets layered on later. The real reason is usually: “I was desperately lonely, and this evangelical co-worker invited me to his church. They welcomed me, gave me a place, knew my name and loved me.”

There’s no need for that. Catholics can be welcoming and warm. We too have the ability to open our homes, to invite new folks in the parish over for tea or Sunday dinner. We too can notice gifts and charisms in the lives of newcomers and say, “Hey! You’ve got a good voice! Have you thought about joining the choir?” or “There’s a ladies’ prayer meeting. Want to come?”

All this is part of harboring the harborless. Some will complain that this teaches Catholics to only look out “for their own.” But this is like complaining that fathers and mother think first of their children before considering their neighbors. The answer is: “What do you expect?”

Of course welcoming the stranger does not stop at our parish doors. But it does start there. And if we cannot welcome the Catholic whom we have seen, how can we welcome the stranger whom we have not seen?

So let us begin where we are and do what is possible first, before trying to begin where we are not and doing what is extremely difficult. This is the counsel of the Gospel itself, which proceeds, not from grand utopian schemes, but by ordinary people doing what they can where they are — and eventually building the Temple of God made with living stones, in which all the nations of the earth can find a home.

Comments

Or when the people entering are sponsored by the government to abuse your hospitality AND in huge numbers and carrying communicable diseases?

Or what happens when it is a potential violation of the Third Amendment of the Bill of Rights?

Posted by Ruthann on Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 7:53 PM (EST):

Robert—-you’ve made your point much clearer. I agree that if we truly believe our religion is the right religion, there is a line we cannot cross over. We can live and let live, but there is no way we can accept and approve of any other religion as being a true religion. If we do accept other religionsd—-we’re not being loyal or true to Catholicism—-to what we believe. Accepting other religions suggests it would be all right for us to practice any or all religions and still believe we would be saved

We can compare this to what government is demanding we do. Government is demanding we accept and give our approval to same-sex. I we do, we’re being disloyal to who and what we are as heterosexual men and women. We cannnot reconcile opposites and retain our honesty and integrity.

Posted by Robert on Thursday, Jul 24, 2014 3:28 PM (EST):

By trying to be other than we are we run the risk of alienating non-Catholics anyway. Keep in mind that when Jesus said “the gates of Hell will not prevail against it” (the Catholic Church) he was not referring to the Baptists or the Assemblies of God or the Seventh Day Adventists, etc. The reality is that ecumenism has virtually killed the Catholic Church. What we have achieved for our efforts is that the Russian Orthodox Church hates the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and us, the Anglicans have ordained women as Bishops and Priests, while the Baptists and their ilk have greatly expanded their efforts to convert Catholics particularly Hispanic Catholics. All the while, Mass attendance has dropped to around 20% and Priestly ordinations have dropped significantly. That is why I suggest that the Catholic Church should concentrate on Catholics and ignore non-Catholics.

Posted by EIA on Thursday, Jul 24, 2014 3:05 PM (EST):

Mark—Thanks for correcting me with regard to your position on the children at the border. I am glad to hear you hope that they will be welcomed. Indeed, I read again what you wrote and could not find that you had recommended deportation anywhere. So how in the world did I jump to the conclusion that you did?

Perhaps it is because on the one hand you lumped the homeless and immigrants in the same story, and then characterized the former by that one lamentable story instead of as people who simply need income to obtain a house. You mentioned St. Paul’s “If anyone will not work, let him not eat”. And then alluded to ‘bums’. But you neglected to mention that St. Paul had also been homeless once: “To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless.” (1 Cor 4:11).

From homeless bums you jumped to the immigrants, risking implicitly associating the two in the minds of readers. You argued they were someone else’s problem, spoke of the law and the common good, expressed “hope” that they would be welcomed. Hope. But you did not advocate that Catholics do anything whatsoever about it. Indeed, you exhorted readers to focus on local needs, on the lonely, not on the immigrant children from Central America (or even on house-less Catholics - perhaps even in their own parish).

Surely you had noticed the raging racism against those invader children in the news.

So I think I reacted viscerally to what I perceived to be an attitude of complacency. In other words, the unspoken message seemed to be: the US is a country of laws, and hopefully that we will work out in their favor, and we have a right to screen out the undesirables, for our common good. But you did not say that those children were not undesirables, did not need to be screened out, should be given every benefit of the doubt. I did not see you come out stringly enough in their defense, to prevent deportation, indefinite detention, inhumane treatment. Nor did you do it for the house-less. To me it suggested that your beliefs may not perfectly coincide with God and his Church’s preferential option for the poor. Please correct me if I am again wrong.

Posted by Ruthann on Wednesday, Jul 23, 2014 11:04 PM (EST):

Robert, Robert, Robert—-God is all Justice and Righteousness. He loves all of His children equally—-saints and sinners, religious and non-religious, black and white, male and female, young and old, smart and not so smart, Catholic and non-Catholic—-every human is loved by God—-every human has the opportunity to get to heaven. See you there!

Posted by Mark Shea on Wednesday, Jul 23, 2014 12:27 PM (EST):

Robert: Then you have entirely failed to grasp the meaning of the gospel. The command is to go into the entire world, not huddle in Fortress Katolicus.

Posted by Robert on Wednesday, Jul 23, 2014 9:32 AM (EST):

As an overarching conceptual framework, I believe the Catholic Church should concentrate on Catholics and ingore non-Catholics entirely.

Posted by Mark Shea on Tuesday, Jul 22, 2014 10:00 PM (EST):

EIA: You seem unfamiliar with my views if you think I advocate deportation of the children at the border. think we owe it to them to welcome and help them. I think those who are greeting them with guns and screams and demanding they be sent back are deeply and terribly wrong—as wrong as the rich man in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich man. I believe our treatment of them is not only a matter of life and death for them, but heaven and hell for us.

Robert: If you think that is the “essence” of the Catholic faith you have no idea what you are talking about.

Anne: I’m sorry you have been hurt. I hope you will return to the Catholic faith.

Posted by joycelen on Tuesday, Jul 22, 2014 11:22 AM (EST):

Oh Mark, so true. I have nothing to add. Just want to affirm you in your observation.

Posted by Robert on Tuesday, Jul 22, 2014 10:28 AM (EST):

The Catholic Church should be the Catholic Church and not try to be in competition with Protestants. The essence of the Catholic Church was and is and should be: (1) we are not generally friendly; (2) we generally don’t sing and (3) we have been around for almost 2,000 years.

Posted by Stuart Kenny on Tuesday, Jul 22, 2014 9:19 AM (EST):

We would gladly welcome all the unborn who have been aborted; had they been born, we would have a much larger “invasion” than what we have at the border. If we would gladly welcome the unborn and not even bother to consider whether they would be a burden, why can’t we welcome the born?

Posted by Ruthann on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 9:25 PM (EST):

This is for those posting here who can think of nothing but “deport” the children or “send them back.”

Why do you criticize others—-condemning people and the Catholic Church because they haven’t “welcomed” you in the way you think you should be welcomed? You seem to be completely lacking in the ability to onsider a welcome—-even for children suffering and in distress.

Posted by Ruthann on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 9:06 PM (EST):

Turning the other cheek doesn’t mean allowing someone to actually hurt you. Every individual has the right to defend himself/herself. Find a knowledgeable priest and have him explain it to you.

Stop and consider what has happened. Million of children have traveled thousands of miles and arrived here at our doorstep. Like the chosen people being led out of Egypt, only a Good Shepherd could have directed that exodus and delivered such a multitude of children intact. You want a modern day-miracle in your lifetime? Learn to recognize them.

I can’t understand the reluctance of the Church hierarchy to speak out in a loud voice. The foundation of all Catholic teaching is the sanctity and protection of all human life from conception to natural death.
Suddenly, when it pertains to refugee children from poverty-stricken and drug infested countries no one seems to believe what they preach to others. Or has the Catholic Church simply become so isolated from society in this nation it can no longer see the good and the value of any objective beyond Catholicism as such?

Posted by Gladys H. Mariani on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 3:34 PM (EST):

“Maybe the children the author wants to deport”- It is right and just for any country to defend its boundaries. It is right and just to take the “children” who are being used as pawns to invade the USA and send them right back to the allegedly poor parents who, regardless of their poverty, seem to have from $8,000.-15,000. to pay well known criminals to cross them over into the USA. It is not only right, but intelligent to ask what kind of parent would give his/her child to a gang member allegedly to improve the child’s chances in life…Being generous of heart does not equate to being naive: the former is commanded, the latter is actually sinful.

Trish Crew,
Yup, I hear you. It can vary from region to region, but yes, Baptists, Mennonites, Pentecostals, etc have all been more welcoming in my experience.We have the Sacraments & full teachings of Christ. They have the potluck suppers,busses that come take you to church or vacation Bible School,people that actually ask your name & follow up with a visit.They volunteer to clean your house & bring meals when a new baby arrives.
Catholics need to take notes.

Posted by EIA on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 11:47 AM (EST):

Maybe the children the author wants to deport in the name of “law” for the “common good” will one day be able to explain to you why Catholics leave the Catholic Church. Here are the statistics taken from the Pew Global Religion Tables for Christians, and from the CIA factbook for Catholics:

The author didn’t define who is included in the “common” of the common good, and who is left out, but I would have thought most Catholics would have heard of the Mystical Body of Christ? If not, don’t waste time reading Pope Pius XII Enyclical, and avoid sinning through intentional ignorance.

Posted by Trish Crew on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 11:21 AM (EST):

I’m the invisible, unwelcomed woman in the pew you mentioned. I have been so, even when I have taught CCD, or RCIA and learned that the women who had been doing it without me weren’t willing to share it with me, so I left. I was a member of the choir for years and when I came to rehearsals the women who had been members before I was never asked about my life, my family, and I felt funny offering my troubles and trying to make friends.
I am a former Baptist and if I wasn’t convinced in the Truth of the Eucharist and the Church I wouldn’t be a lonely Catholic. I’d go somewhere I was loved and welcomed.

Posted by Anne on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 10:50 AM (EST):

You are spot on! I was a member of several Catholic parishes before finally leaving for a Protestant church where people actually talked to me and included God in our discussions. Catholics in my area seemed to consider the parish a local club, and I was apparently not one of the popular kids. I was also a grownup and refused to play that game. Talking about God was not an embarrassment to me as it seemed to be to Catholics. Eventually I got homesick, and about that time stumbled on a parish where the priest and people actually seemed to be happy to be Catholic and who included God in their lives.
Not everyone does. I now make a special effort to be welcoming to those I don’t know or who seem out of place. It’s not much, but might make a difference.

Posted by mrscracker on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 8:12 AM (EST):

Thank you for the commonsense advice regarding prudence.
We knew a kind soul who took in a young, homeless man & was almost beaten to death.

Posted by Blackstone C. on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 7:36 AM (EST):

Jesus taught His followers to turn the other cheek. If someone wallops you up-side the head, knocking out a few teeth and breaking your cheekbone, great. Just to the other side of your face to your attacker. Don’t even make him walk around you to do it.

Now, if we really lived like that, what would human life be like? It’d be ruled by the violent, the ignorant, and the coldly calculating. So, obviously, we have to be discerning. We simply can’t be under an absolute obligation to let murderers, thugs, and rapists ruin our lives, right? But this commonsense angle is especially true WHEN IT COME TO MAKING SUCH DECISIONS FOR OTHERS!

I may want to live a life of radical Christian charity, and turn the other cheek, or open my house to “alien invasion”, and move to a back room and surrender what I’ve worked for (and my parents and their parents, and to give away what my kids would otherwise inherit), but can I make that decision for my wife and kids? Is that moral? Do I “turn the other cheek” when murderers and rapists break in to my house, a domicile housing wife and kids? Do I? Am I not morally wrong to say, “Well, honey, you go ahead and get raped and beaten and maybe killed, and the kids too, because Jesus taught us radical charity.”

I’m sorry Latin America is a mess. But it is MORALLY WRONG for the Obama Admin (and the American political class generally) to turn our national house over to an endless stream of foreigners, period. That’s theft. It is not charity any more than taxing me to death to pay for “those less fortunate them I am”. Charity is me, as an individual, helping someone à la the Good Samaritan in Christ’s original story. It is NOT government being a Nanny, either to me, my kids, or foreign kids, either.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised what’s going on because government takes 40 percent or so of our income and makes us pay rent on our actual homes, a rent known as real-estate taxes. In fact, we own nothing—but rather we rent everything we think we “own” as it is. Then, too, we live in a country that’s murdered what, 45 million or so unborn babies since Roe v Wade?

And make no mistake: the politicians letting this happen do so not because they give a hoot about the poor and wretched, but because they think it will advantage them in the short-term politically. Same deal with all their welfare programs. And some of them are actually doing it to Cloward-Piven this country to death. That’s the reality we’re actually dealing with, all sentimentality aside.

Blackstone C.

Posted by Orson on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 4:57 AM (EST):

Fr. Groeschel always called it: The warm soggy tuna fish sandwich story. We hear such often from the deacon in our parish who never met a miracle he liked.

Posted by Ruthann on Monday, Jul 21, 2014 12:37 AM (EST):

The National Catholic Register , June 29-July 12 issue, carried an article entitled, “U.S. Fertility and the Faithful.” It lamented fertility rates “that have been dropping since the 1970’s. The total fertility rate “dropped to under 1.87, also a record low.” “...this rate is below the replacement level of 2.1 per woman, the level at which a given generation can exactly replicate itself.” Further—-“The total fertility rate has not been above replacement level since 2007, and it has dropped every year since.”
If fertility rates drop past a certain point, the decrease in population begins a downward spiral. I think it’s entirely possible that sone civilizations—-like Easter Island inhabitants—-who seemed to just disappear without a trace aborted themselves out of existence.
The Social Security dilemma—-not enough young in the workforce to support all the retiring baby boomers—-is only the beginning of a very large problem. Each state and the nation as a whole needs an essential workforce to maintain their infrastructure—-not to mention doctors, nurses, farmers, manufacturers, clergy, teachers,a strong military, etc., etc…
And miracle of miracles—-the benevolent Hand of God has sent children and more children who also need us as we need them—-and who have only a matter of a few years before they can join our dwindling workforce. They’re knocking on our door and like our Beloved Jesus Christ, all we have to do is open it.

“Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened.” May God keep these precious chldren always in the Shadow of His Wings.

Explain these facts to your Congress people and to the general public.+

Posted by Richard Connell on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 11:39 PM (EST):

This is three articles crunched into one: one on the miracle of the loaves, one on homelessness, and a third on fellowship.

On the first article: the miracle of the loaves foreshadows the Eucharist, in that, as a few loaves fed many people, one consecrated Host can be divided and each person who consumes a part of the Host fully receives the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus. To claim that the miracle was really ‘secret sharing’ is to undermine what the miracle teaches.

On the second article: Somewhere, St. Paul says to show discretion when dealing with outsiders. We are definitely not supposed to treat everyone the same.

On fellowship: rex had the best advice that I read on that one: the last four sentences in his comment.

Posted by Therese on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 9:43 PM (EST):

Well written article. I am writing, however, because I see it differently, I guess. I think people leave the church because they don’t understand the treasures they have in the Mass, the sacraments, the magisterium, the history. If one truly understands what Catholicism can do for one’s relationship with God, loneliness is seen as a temporary suffering, remediated by reaching out to others in the Spiritual and Corporal works of mercy. Someone who truly understands the Fullness of Truth in the Catholic Church would never leave for such a shallow (in my opinion) reason as lack of socialization, only change parishes.

Posted by Kristian Freel on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 9:26 PM (EST):

Mike, this would be most excellent if the state could afford the aid you indirectly suggest, however, what you suggest is that Caesar, not the Church, pay for this and tax the common man. I say that proposal is nullified and does not create the sense of good will. What about the Russian, Romanian, or the Eastern European that must pay thousands of dollars to regularize themselves into the U.S. and they have legitimate degrees in engineering and such? This could be considered discriminatory. I dare say that our President has spent more than 65 Million funding American bishops in the Catholic Church to fund “human trafficking” to support a social purpose greater than the average American can comprehend. These children are being used as pawns in a game.

Posted by rex on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 6:02 PM (EST):

I don’t think you have the number one reason. That is probably the number one excuse. The number one reason I finally hear after getting to know people is they were in a terrible marriage and had to leave or they thought they had a good marraige and their spouse left them. Now they are remarried and happy but the Church won’t accept that. Their new church is ok with civil divorce and remarriage. I’m not saying this to judge anyone. I know some really nice people in this situation.

If you want to make friends at a parish you need to get involved. Show up for things listed in the bulletin. Get active. I’ve never been turned away.

Posted by GregB on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 5:44 PM (EST):

@ Catholic & loving it:
*
I was getting ready to make some of the same points that you made in your first comment. Less that a year ago this web site ran an article titled “U.S. Hispanics Falling Prey to Secular Trends Without Catholic Witness, Warns Archbishop.” The URL is:
*http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/u.s.-hispanics-falling-prey-to-secular-trends-without-catholic-witness-warn
*
This article and the comments made by Archbishop Chaput presents a disturbing view. It would appear that the assimilation of American vices has been winning the day. Many of Archbishop Chaput’s comments about the Latinos can also be applied to native born U.S. Catholics. What kind of spiritual harbor is the Catholic Church in the USA providing for all of her members?

Posted by Romulus on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 4:55 PM (EST):

Not to go off topic, but Jesus Christ, strictly speaking, is not a “human being”. He’s a divine person with a human nature.

Posted by Kristen on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 4:23 PM (EST):

I absolutely hate the phrase “harbor the harborless”. It used to be shelter the homeless. I don’t know who decided to change it but I find it very irritating.

Posted by Martin on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 2:28 PM (EST):

Mark, you are right about a lack of hospitality being epidemic in Catholic parishes. I am an adult convert to the Catholic Church, and have noticed a huge difference between the evangelical churches i attended and Catholic parishes. Most of the evangelical churches had people smile and welcome me, ask my name, etc. The exact opposite at almost every Catholic parish. I attended a local parish for 3 months. Two people said “Hi” to me, no one asked my name, and I had no conversations with anyone. I left.

Posted by Rick on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 1:58 PM (EST):

Mark, one can hardly disagree with you on the need for generosity and practice of the works of mercy. But you are way off your game on your analysis of why people stay or leave the Church.

Failed friendship/fellowship by practicing Catholics was not the main reason for leaving the Church in the last half century, nor did failed friendship increase fears in coming into the Church—anymore than failed friendship was the main reason for Judas betraying Christ, or the apostles (save John) running for the tall grass when the bad guys came for Jesus, or most of the Jews sitting on the sidelines watching the young Church from afar.

I would suggest that you begin with the full analysis of Faith, Hope, Charity. These are the first causes in any discussion of entering or leaving the Church. Friendship/fellowship is one aspect of charity. But there is more to charity than what you describe. In my cohort (middle class baby boomer) roughly 80% of my boyhood friends from middle class Denver left the Catholic Church in the 1970s, never to return. This great exodus was largely related to the confluence of social pressure, fornication, and intellectual ridicule. It was the combined attack on Faith, Hope, and personal Charity in witnessing to the Faith. Loneliness and the corporal works of mercy had little to do with it.

The attack on my Faith came from the popular culture and from Catholic educators, especially the Jesuits. Of the 10 Jesuit priests that taught me, all but one either ignored or openly ridiculed the Church’s teaching on sexual morality. The Church in the US was in chaos from 1965 to 1990; bishops were disoriented, priests felt abandoned, schools were collapsing, parishes were closing, seminaries were emptying… it was NOT loneliness. It was rampant confusion, loss of Faith, loss of Hope, and bad sexual habits that drove the exodus: loneliness wasn’t the cause, loneliness was an effect.

In today’s world, as long as the Church holds firm on the sixth commandment, people will view it as an unwelcoming place.

Posted by Sygurd on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 12:56 PM (EST):

Maybe. However, in my opinion, the leading two reasons are: 1. People don’t understand what the Church is all about and want her to follow the secular agendas; 2. People understand only too well what the Church is all about and find her to follow too many secular agendas.

Posted by jenny on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 12:16 PM (EST):

It is indeed a very difficult situation…God help us.

Posted by EIA on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 12:05 PM (EST):

“So let us begin where we are and do what is possible first, before trying to begin where we are not and doing what is extremely difficult.”

Yes. Let us stop being hypocritical. Let us stop conveniently stereotyping the house-less (not home-less, for the world is their home). Let us stop pretending that shoving them into a shelter where it is not unlikely they will be abused or killed is charity, love, that will meet with God’s approval.

Let us stop being hypocrites. Let us stop generalizing from particulars. Yes. A victim can do evil things, but so can you. The fact that the poor are not necessarily good, does not mean that most are not, or that we are not most profoundly obligated towards them. And that the obligation is divinely ordained
(Luke 16: 19-31).

Let us stop being hypocrites. There are God’s laws and then there are Ceasars’s. But Ceasar’s cannot replace God’s. And when they do, they are Satan’s.

Let us stop being hypocritres. Send the Immigrants back home? Which ones the Central Americans, the Mexicans or the Anglo Americans? Where is home for the first two? Central America, Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Colorado? Where’s home for the third? England? Who invaded who?

Let us stop being hypocrites. Sin is not only personal. It is also structural. And with structural sin you don’t have to do anything to sin. It’s built in to the program. It’s automatic. You just have to go along with the status quo. While you go along, you sin.

Let us stop being hypoctrites. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, was not.

Posted by Gladys H. Mariani on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 10:37 AM (EST):

Wow! Excellent! Very impressed!

Posted by Howard on Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 9:10 AM (EST):

“A priest in Los Angeles is not bound by the question of whether the human being at his door is legal. He is bound by the fact that the human being at his door is Jesus Christ.” That, of course, is true of *every* human being at his door—yet we expect the priest to behave differently if the visitor is merely poor and homeless than if the visitor is an escapee from a prison where he was serving a sentence for a violent crime. Because it is true of *every* human being, it is not in itself enough to say that a priest should react to the illegal immigrant the same way he reacts to THIS person and differently from how he reacts to THAT person. The priest still has to determine just how serious an offense illegal immigration really is.

Yes, in addition to an orthodox presentation of Catholicism (as opposed to watered-down) to Hispanics in America parishes, like Mark said, we do need a more welcoming atmosphere from the Anglo community of the parish. As a Hispanic immigrant who has been in several parishes, I have seen the off-putting, unwelcoming superior-like attitude of many of the Anglo parish memebers (certainly not all are unwelcoming but a big minority are). Don’t ignore us, don’t treat us like we’re illegal (you don’t know someone’s legal or illegal immigration status by looking at us), don’t be racist (by saying “THOSE Mexicans”- even though they might be Dominican, Nicaraguan or Argentine). Simply befriend us or give us a simple smile. Get to know the Hispanic community of your parish a little bit. If you hear Hispanic babies crying at Mass, be patient, look for a positive solution & simply thank God that He still loves us by sending us babies. Jesus said “let the little ones come to Me”, where else better to allow the little ones (even if crying) come to Him than at Mass? If we love our Spanish language & still struggle with English, have patience (being patient is a Christian virtue). Why not let Hispanics hold to 2 languages (English & Spanish) rather than “assimilate”? What’s wrong to learning English but also holding unto beautiful Spanish? We love our Spanish language & Catholicism embraces all human cultures & languages. When people speak 2 languages, they’re stay smarter, studies say. Imagine how awesome America today would have been if her Polish & Irish & Italian immigrants would have passed down their tongue languages to generations (as well as learning English) rather than simply being pressured by Anti-immigrants (nativists, KkK, Know Nothings) & societal forces to “assimilate” & lose those precious mother tongues. I saw an Israeli immigrant at the store speak both Hebrew & English, how cool? How cool would it have been if Mark Shea spoke both English & Irish (Gaelic)? Sadly, thanks to English assimilation, not many in Ireland speak Irish anymore. Being Catholic means being universal enough to embrace all the goodness of all human cultures (nations) while rejecting all the bad stuff & bring those cultures to Christ so that He may purify, transform & reconcile them all to Himself. Many unique precious languages are being lost everyday due to worldwide commercialization, should Catholics support “assimilation”? Historically, we Catholics have not, we embrace ‘em.

Mark Shea, excellent well-balanced but most importantly Gospel-centered article on this most contentious issue. Now as for the bishops, yes advocate for governmental reforms of the immigration system but don’t ignore the spiritual side of your bishopric job as a shepherd who tends his flock: also advocate (& perhaps more importantly) that these Latin American immigrants are properly catechized in the Catholic Parishes so that they will remain in the Church & not fall away & be absorbed by American secular society, “evangelical” Protestants, Jehovah’s “Witnesses” & Mormons. There’s too many Hispanic Ex-Catholics in the USA already. Bishops: yes advocate immigration reforms in Congress but most importantly advocate better catechism in Catholic parishes for Hispanic immigrants. If a Weak watered-down version of Catholicism is presented to Hispanic immigrants in the USA, they will leave the true Body of Christ (Catholic Church). These Hispanics immigrants aren’t dumb (I’m one of them, I know them from experience). They’re smart & they rightly expect an meaningful, invigorating & truthful Catholicism. An orthodox presentation- not watered-down.

Posted by Stuart Kenny on Saturday, Jul 19, 2014 7:14 PM (EST):

The Irish most certainly were not assimilationists! They formed their own communities and largely kept to themselves, with their own language and their own holidays. They also did not come here legally. Most people thought the Irish were dirty and filled with disease. Please look at the history of the Know Nothing party in America and it’s fight with the Irish. The reason the Irish are traditionally Democrats is because we were the party which looked after their rights when no one else would.

Posted by Robert on Saturday, Jul 19, 2014 2:34 PM (EST):

Mark: I agree with you completely. The right wing does not want to be hospitable even though they must be if they are Christian. The left wing wants to be over-hospitable. The answer may be somewhere in the middle. Namely, we should be hospitable to every immigrant while, at the same time, every immigrant should follow the proper process for being here. The problem is the approximately 12 million immigrants who did not follow the proper process for being here. In my view, we should apply the “statuet of limitations” on these people and assume they are here in large part because we didn’t catch them in time. Let’s wipe the slate clean as of this moment and vow we will never again be so lax on our border partols as to let this situation ever occur in the future.

Posted by Tom Byrne on Saturday, Jul 19, 2014 1:22 PM (EST):

Mark: you are a soul of common sense today. I especially appreciated the line about the “bum”! I wonder if the diversity of Catholic responses to the problems of homeless and such is not Providential: to ensure a variety of approaches, rather than a one-size-fits-all pill imposed by chancery bureaucrats.
On the topic of immigration, there is this difference between modern immigrants (especially from Latin America) and those of past generations. My Irish, German and English forebears took assimilation as a matter of course, and were told so (sometimes harshly) by both the broader society and their own leadership. But today there are any number of “La Raza” types that tell these southerners that they do not have to assimilate: that they can enjoy the benefits of America while remaining what they are. The Church needs to say something on this point.

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